Catching Chen Qing Ling

The 2019 Chinese drama Chén Qíng Lìng (CQL; translated The Untamed) quickly became a massive phenomenon, drawing millions of viewers in China and beyond. Its resonant story, rich cast of characters, and striking production captured audience attention globally; its paratexts and fandoms helped keep that attention sustained. What made this particular mix so compelling, and what can The Untamed show us about increasingly transcultural media flows?Catching Chén Qíng Lìng explores how The Untamed has been translated, produced, distributed, watched, and remixed. Contributors offer multifaceted insights into the path from subcultural writing tradition to highly profitable entertainment media, as well as some of the challenges such change engenders.From fan translations and digital labor to the 227 Incident and issues of censorship, this collection explores some of the questions raised by The Untamed’s enduring resonance and considers what this might mean for the future of transcultural media.

Catching Chén Qíng Lìng is the first comprehensive scholarly analysis dedicated to a single Chinese media franchise in the English-speaking world. This groundbreaking collection offers close readings of the transmedia adaptation, transcultural reception, and transformative works of a danmei franchise by situating it in a complicated and constantly shifting web of authorship, fandom, government censorship, media capital, and cultural flows. An indispensable resource for anyone interested in queer popular culture in China and its rising global popularity. -- Ling Yang, Xiamen University Distinguished by its cross-culturally collaborative orientation, Catching Chen Qing brings together a veritable who’s who of established and emerging scholars within the burgeoning fields of Chinese and transnational fan studies. This collection gives the 2019 Tencent web series, Chen Qing Ling (The Untamed), its full due, delving into the intricacies of its generic hybridity, Chinese cultural underpinnings, and transnational popularity in such a way that, like the show itself, what begins in seemingly byzantine complexity achieves a unique depth of clarity by the end. -- Lori Morimoto, Assistant Professor, Department of Media Studies, University of Virginia

Yue (Cathy) Wang is a Lecturer in the School of Humanities at Shanghai Normal University.Maria K. Alberto is a PhD candidate in literature and cultural studies at the University of Utah.